how to care 4 maya birds on the ground, nest missing, so is their mother!  

thanks for the suggestions. hopefully the mother comes back soon! :(

i'm trying to feed them bread that's been shredded to pieces and soaked in water, so it's soft and at least it will give them water at the same time. i don't have baby food around the house, but i think i can make homemade soft food...

i'll try to keep them near the window because my room is a little warm. it'll still be near where their original nest used to be... and at least i can see if the mother does come back.

they gobble down food so quickly! such little creatures have great appetites!

i wonder if there is such a thing as overfeeding birds. i don't know when to stop. :(

aw... good for you. ^_^ it's actually my first time to raise birds! my boyfriend calls me "momma bird by accident" - lol ^_^

i didn't even plan on raising these birds. i just couldn't help but feel bad if anything happened to them. (by the way, at such a young age, they already have their own quirks, so cute!)

anyway, of the four of them, one is not looking good. :( the poor bird is gasping with its mouth wide open. i think it's got gapeworms. i tried giving mebendazole, but it refused to eat anything (since it would be hard to swallow if you're using your whole mouth to breathe)...

the other three are doing great. i already started them on mebendazole in case they also have gapeworms. they are voracious eaters, which is a good thing.

i am getting a little worried though because they no longer chirp like the first time i saw them. they look healthy and happy, but why no more chirping? :(

i believe they've been abandoned as well. actually, i think they've been pushed out of the nest! i actually found the nest this morning. it's up under the roof. so if the nest is there, how come 4 hatchlings are suddenly on the ground? they couldn't have fallen altogether, right?

i've been looking for what a maya bird is called in other countries. it's called a "house sparrow." do parent sparrows actually push their hatchlings out of the nest for any reason? have you seen that before with your other birds?

you're lucky to have raised so many birds! i only wish my 4 little ones (or at least 3 coz the other one is dying, huhu) would grow up to be fledglings. if i don't imprint on them, i might be able to release them one day. i've read somewhere that they'll keep coming back to me though, which is heartwarming... ^_^

It sounds like you are being a wonderful "momma bird"!

I have actually raised one house sparrow before. It was the very first bird that I "saved". I named him Fred and he grew and grew until one day I was able to release him. He DID keep coming back, too! If those three of yours survive and grow to adulthood, you will no doubt see them often.

I have come across all the fledglings from a nest after having been pushed out before. This happened just last year with a family of baby Robins. Unfortunately, by the time I found them, they were all already dead. There were 6 of them.

I don't know why this happens, unless the parent birds realized that the nest was not in a good spot and was always being disrupted by something. In the case of the baby birds that I found, I believe it was because the nest was built too close to where cats could reach them or, it might have been that another pair of birds knocked the babies out of the nest because they wanted the nest for themselves.

Your one bird who appears to be dying might have suffered injuries when it fell which is why it's having trouble breathing and will not eat. I'm happy to hear that the others are doing fine!

Baby birds won't chirp if they aren't hungry. They only chirp when they want food so it sounds like you are feeding them enough.

I once raised 9 babies at once and, when one would wake up and start chirping, they ALL woke up and let me know they wanted feeding. One of them was such a little piggie that he always got the first beakful of the formula. I named him "Mouth" because he had such a big one! LOL

It is amazing how early they develop their own personalities! I loved raising my birds, but it got to be too much for me (after raising those 9 at one time). I raised budgies (parakeets), love birds and cockatiels. They were so much fun because, when you raise them yourself, they're so friendly.

I would let my babies out of their cages to fly around the room to get exercise, but they would always land on me someplace (my head or shoulders, or if I was sitting down, they'd land on my lap) and just walk all over me. LOL

Good luck to you. It sounds like you are doing everything you can for them and, as long as the other three have no internal injuries, I'd say that they are going to grow into adulthood and do just fine, all thanks to you.

Take care, Momma Bird!

poor robins! :( oh, i never thought about other birds (not the parents) pushingout the chicks. given the trait of house sparrows being very competitive about nests, it makes sense...

well, you may be right about the one hatchling's injuries. that bird IS the only one who seemed to have suffered. and he's the only bird with a bruise (neck/chest area).

oh, how lovely, i can't wait for these birds to grow up! i can't wait to see them every once in a while, like old friends!

by the way, i also have a hatchling who opens his mouth the widest! he's also always the first to do so. he opens his eyes and sees me, and he immediately opens his muth wide. lol ^_^

wow, you've raised so many birds! good for you! so very few people are willing to take time to rescue other animals. i'm always glad to meet people who are friendly to the other creatures that make this world quite lovely.

thanks for all the details! i feel better about them not chirping. the 3 seem so content and happy right now. ^_^

PS my weak little hatchling just died. he just stopped breathing. at least his agony is over. sigh. poor bird. i didn't even get the chance to name him. :(

thank god the other 3 are safe. again, many thanks to you! you've no idea how much you've helped.

I'm so glad I could help! I'm always glad to meet a fellow critter-lover, too.

I once worked in a place where it was only me and the boss. (It was a public school system middle-management union, members everywhere but only the boss and I worked in the office.)

One day, my boss said, "You know birds, put your coat on and come outside with me." That's all he said and I was very confused. But, like a good employee, I did as he said. Outside was a pigeon lying on it's back. It was alive, but struggling to get upright.

I wrapped my hands around the bird's wings and brought them in against it's body and turned it over. The poor thing just looked up at me, never tried to peck or anything. Maybe it sensed that I was trying to help.

Anyway, I got the bird upright and was looking at it's legs to see if maybe it had any broken bones, as the wings seemed to work fine. I let go of it to see if it could stand on it's own and it walked a few steps. I stood back and the bird just took off flying! I have no idea why the bird was having problems turning over, or why it was on he ground in the first place, but it seemed just fine once I turned it over. It made me happy to know that I helped, even if I didn't know what exactly I had done to help it! LOL

I have a cool turtle story, too, but it's pretty long. All I'll say is that we now have baby turles in our lake.

i love turtles!

i was once given a baby turtle as a gift. it made me mad! turtles aren't supposed to be gifts, they're wild animals and will die early in captivity! so i love that the turtle/s you saved are now in the lake. that's so lovely!

by the way, the little bird died yesterday. :/ sadly, two of his siblings followed suit. even my boyfriend was sad. he kept trying to poke at it, saying he kinda hoped it would just flutter its wings and wake up! sigh.

good news is, one seemed to have survived what killed the other three. he's the fattest, biggest, and eldest of all four, so it's about right that he survived. he loves sleeping in my hand. as much as i won't want that (i fear i will imprint on him), he keeps sidling up to me and sleeping on my hand. oh well, too late about the imprinting thing...

anyway, one survivor is better than none. he has larger pin feathers now. i think he'll make it... hopefully... ^_^

i also wonder about the pigeon! whatever happened to it? maybe it got disoriented, fell on its back, and couldn't quite place which side is up? ^_^ it's good it got up and flew away just like that!

hooray to animal lovers everywhere! they make earth a much friendlier place, especially during times like these. ^_^

Aww, that makes me so sad to hear that 3 of the birds died! But, it was most likely because of the fall from the nest. I'm so happy the largest one is still growing, though! It's okay that you imprint yourself on him because he'll know what to do when the time comes. It sounds like he's fully accepted you as his foster mom!

Sparrows love seed so, once this little guy starts flying, he'll be wanting seed. They take little 'practice' flights initially... he'll start by flapping his wings, then maybe you could hold him a foot or so off the ground and let him go so he'll learn how to use his wings. It doesn't take long! They grow so fast!

You can buy some canary seed (or millet) because they're all in the same family of birds. Also, make sure he has fresh water daily. You could just keep some seed and water wherever you're keeping the bird and he'll start eating and drinking as soon as he's ready.

The turtle story, as briefly as I can make it is: I found a turtle wandering around, apparently lost. It was a rather large turtle called a RiverCooter (had to make it one word because myLot doesn't like the last part of that name) and her shell was about 12" long. There was no river or lake anywhere near where I found her so I'm assuming that someone must've dropped her off or something.

I brought her home and made a pond for her in my yard. She was quite happy there and, one day, I saw her laying eggs in my garden! I didn't think they'd hatch because there wasn't any male turtles around but 5 of the eggs hatched! I had a 75 gallon aquarium, so I made a nice home for 3 of the babies. I gave 2 of them to a guy who raised turtles. My babies lived happily in their tank until we moved here, two years ago. By that time, they were about 6" long and I thought they'd like a bigger "tank", so I let them go into our lake. Last year, I saw new baby turtles so I knew that they were doing well and reproducing! I was so happy! They still stick around where I let them go and they'll poke their heads out of the water every now and then to say hi, or maybe they're hoping for food. I spoiled them rotten by hand-feeding them when I had them in the tank! LOL

Take care of your little baby! I sure hope he makes it, although it sounds like he's going to do just fine. He may like your hand because it's round and warm, kind of like it was in the nest.

oh wow, lucky turtles! and it's great that the lake is less lonely with those turtles around. i've watched shows before about how turtes lay eggs and the journey they go through just to survive. so it's great that there are turtles in your lake nw. ^_^

the survivor bird is still doing great. as they say in hospitals, he's "stable and on the way to getting discharged" lol ^_^ i take him out to my garden where other sparrows chirp noisily everyday, just so he gets to listen and learn the sparrow songs. he stays quiet and wide eyed whenever he's in the garden. he must be overwhelmed by all the sights and sounds, lol ^_^

i'll update you once he becomes a fledgling and starts learning to fly. again, thanks for sharing what you've learned in raising birds and animals! ^_^